‘What the actual fuck!’ Angel screamed as she thumped the gas pedal of the car. As she did so a cacophony of pain erupted in her leg, shooting up from where the bullet had torn across her ankle.
She wasn’t sure who she was shouting at. Mason and H for leaving her, or that would-be hero for shooting her, tackling her and fighting her and causing her to be left behind.
Three vehicles. Three exit routes. Except if we hit a snag and one of us needs assistance. Because we don’t leave anyone behind.
Except they had. They’d left her behind. Alone.
How had H even got up again? She’d seen him gunned down.
Wired on adrenaline she pushed past the pain in her leg and raced through the streets, still relatively clear in the early morning, dawn only just approaching. South was the immediate aim. South, to make it look like they were heading for the coast and the quickest way out of the country, but then loop back to the east and north to the safe house. But that’d be in a different vehicle. This one was simply for the getaway.
Three vehicles. Three exit routes. Except she’d already decided not to take her planned route. She was taking Mason’s. Whatever had happened to H there was no way he was capable of driving. Mason was driving that van.
She’d find him. Figure this out.
And it took a lot less time than she thought. Less than three miles, in fact.
She took a right. A busy crossroads lay fifty yards ahead that even in the early morning was likely to be a sticking point, but it was a necessary point to traverse to get clear of the most congested part of the city.
Except it looked like Mason hadn’t been patient enough. He’d tried to run a red or had just got unlucky or something because at the other side of the junction, the van was impaled on the traffic light. Smoke billowed from its crumpled hood as bystanders stepped from their cars, looking bewildered and unsure whether to approach the crash or not.
It had only happened seconds before. Otherwise, some good Samaritan would have put aside any doubts and gone up to the van already.
Angel sped up. Pedestrians became wary of the approaching fast car as though sensing another smash, or just that some bigger event was about to take place that they couldn’t yet comprehend.
She skidded to a stop, tires screeching, people cowering away. She pulled on her balaclava, grabbed the AK-47 and – doing her best to ignore the pain in her leg from the gunshot – rushed out to the van.
‘Stay back!’ she screamed and waved the gun around, and everyone took notice. No heroes here.
She reached the driver’s side and yanked open the door.
‘What the hell?’
Not Mason. Not H. Who the fuck was that behind the wheel?
The guy was bleeding badly, his head hanging forward. She went to lift it to see his face, to check his pulse but his eyes sprang open and he yelled, and she saw the glint of the knife coming toward her.
‘Bastard!’ she roared back and had that little bit more strength and focus than he did to first defect the blow and to help the knife on its way up into the guy’s neck.
His hand fell from the grip and Angel yanked the knife out, and blood poured as she stepped away. She swooshed the rifle around again as she moved for the back of the van. She opened the doors.
‘Shit!’
An absolute mess. H’s body lay twisted and lifeless. She jumped in and took only a few seconds, checking his pulse, to know he was gone.
‘What happened?’ she asked Mason, but he was groggy too. He had a nasty-looking cut above his eye to go with the gunshot wound in his leg and he cradled his hands to his side. Another bullet or what? ‘Can you talk?’
‘Get us… out of here,’ he groggily replied.
The handcuffed Karaman was the most awake out of all of them but said nothing as Angel grabbed him and pushed him out of the van to the ground. She was a little bit more gentle with Mason, but only a little bit.
She jumped down onto the road and waved the AK-47 around again.
‘I said stay back!’
She let off a few rounds for effect and anyone who hadn’t already taken cover jumped for safety. No one stepped in to try to stop her as she bundled the two men into the car.
Sirens closed in nearby. No doubt the police had received countless calls from the bystanders. But she was done.
Seconds later they were heading away.
We don’t leave anyone behind.
Yeah. Except they’d left her. And she’d just left H. Because he was dead and she didn’t have the time to drag a dead body with her.
And she’d left that other man too. The driver.
Whoever the fuck he was.
* * *
Nearly two hours later Angel pulled the car off the single-track road and onto the winding gravel driveway, the safe house a quarter of a mile further ahead, still out of sight beyond the undulating terrain.
She tensed up. As though the entire day hadn’t already been tense, starting with the initial attack going wrong and that damn hero nearly screwing everything up. Then finding Mason and the others in the smashed van. Then the changeover to the current car around the back of the abandoned roadside restaurant next to a grimy petrol station.
Actually, that part was probably the least stressful as it had just felt good to be out of the getaway car and into this much nicer vehicle that hopefully wasn’t yet on any kind of police watch list.
Yet despite everything that had come before, she tensed up again as though a last-minute hitch was imminent. As though she was about to ride over the crest of the hill and see the safe house in the distance with a swarm of blue lights around it, armed police, snapping dogs, snipers, helicopters…
Absolutely nothing.
She sighed in relief and slowed the car, crawling the last part of the journey, her eyes busy scoping out in case of a sudden ambush. But there really was no one else there at all. No vehicles or houses even in sight of this isolated place.
She took the car around the back of the converted barn and parked up, shutting down the engine. She turned to look at the two men in the back. The sack over Karaman’s head meant she couldn’t tell if he was staring at her or not, but she thought from his upright pose that he was definitely awake. Mason, on the other hand, was slumped up against his window.
‘You good?’ she asked, reaching out and nudging his leg. He shuffled and murmured but couldn’t find the strength or the focus to give a coherent response.
‘Doesn’t sound like it to me,’ Karaman said, his voice calm and confident and a juxtaposition to the fact he was handcuffed and bloodied. Her eyes rested on the bandages covering his hands. She had no clue what that was about. ‘I think he’s losing a lot of blood.’
And Mason definitely was. Which really wasn’t a good thing at all. Not just because of the obvious ramifications for his well-being, but because of the amount of red stuff which had leaked all over the car. DNA everywhere. But worse – for her – was the blood left at the two scenes in London. The bodies too. The blood in the abandoned car.
Nothing she could do about any of that now.
She stepped out and opened Karaman’s door first and pushed the barrel of her AK-47 against his temple.
‘Stay there, or I won’t just shoot you, I’ll put a bullet in your balls first and watch you writhe in agony while I decide my next move.’
Karaman didn’t offer any response so she slammed the door and he jumped in shock. She went to the other side and pulled Mason out and had to take most of his weight to keep him on two feet.
‘I’ll get you inside,’ she said.
He said nothing and she practically dragged him into the cold and damp safe house – the same place they’d been last night as they prepped. A simple barn conversion that consisted of a single-story dwelling with two bedrooms and a large open-plan space, although it’d never been fully finished. Walls remained plain plasterboard, light switches hung off walls – where there’d been one fitted at all – loose wires dangled here and there. Floors were plain poured concrete. No heating, but the plumbing worked at least and someone – perhaps the builder for his own use during the work – had installed a cheap toilet and basin in the cloakroom.
She propped Mason against the wall in the bigger of the two bedrooms. She pulled his head straight but it just lolled back onto his shoulders.
She slapped his cheek and that seemed to wake him up a little.
‘Mason?’ she said.
‘I’m… good,’ he said.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
He shook his head. Kind of. Before his eyes slid closed again and his head rolled.
She lifted his shirt. He had another gunshot wound on his side. In and out. It was bleeding pretty badly, his clothes sodden, but she thought the bullet had at least missed his organs. And the exit hole was a bonus as it meant no bullet to extract.
‘I’ll get you stitched up,’ she said.
She got no response before she got back to her feet and limped out to retrieve Karaman. She needed to tend to her own wound too although she knew it was only a nasty gash, the bullet tearing across her skin and muscle. Painful, but not as bad or as debilitating as it could have been.
She opened the car door then stepped back with the rifle pointed at him. A rifle filled with blanks, but hopefully Karaman hadn’t twigged to that yet.
‘Are you injured?’ she asked him.
He turned his head to her but said nothing.
‘Are you hurt?’ she asked again.
‘Well, what do you think these bandages are for?’ he said, showing his hands.
‘I mean, did you get hurt in the escape. Shot?’
‘No.’
‘Then you can walk. So get out of the car.’
He didn’t move straight away but then slowly, clumsily, he pulled himself out and onto his feet and he stood there facing her, cuffed hands hanging in front of him.
‘Why do I feel like this isn’t the rescue I’d hoped for,’ he said.
‘Because it isn’t. You’re not in prison anymore but you’re not free. And I won’t hesitate to—’
‘Shoot me? Be careful, lady.’
She tightened her grip on the gun. The way he said that last word… So demeaning.
‘You can’t kill me, can you? So before you go threatening to shoot me, just let us get that straight.’
‘I’ll kill you if I have to.’
‘No. If you wanted me dead, I would be already. And whoever you are you’re not on my side otherwise I wouldn’t have these cuffs on and my face covered like this. So whatever is happening – ransom, I don’t know – you need me alive.’
She let go of the rifle and it slapped her thigh as it dangled on its strap. She strode up to Karaman and either he didn’t hear her coming or didn’t care, because he didn’t move as she grabbed his hand and crushed one of his bandaged fingers in her grip. He jolted and shook.
‘I will hurt you,’ she said. ‘Now move.’
She retook a firm grip over his hand and pulled to encourage him forward and whether through pain or whatever else he acquiesced and moved with her. She took him through to the second bedroom and eased him down onto the floorboards. She left him there for a few moments and went back to empty the car before returning to the bedroom with the rope in her hands. She bound Karaman’s ankles first then used the rest of the rope to tie him to the ice-cold radiator.
‘Looks like I’m not going anywhere,’ he said with an unnecessary chuckle. ‘Why don’t you take this sack off my head now?’
She paused in the doorway, thinking over his words.
‘You don’t want me to see your face, fine. But—’
‘Yeah, I don’t want you to see my face,’ Angel said. ‘But to be honest, I really don’t want to see yours.’
She headed back to Mason with the medical supplies. Far from a full kit, but hopefully enough to help him in the short term.
‘Hey,’ she said, nudging him and trying to rouse him but he was even more groggy than before, his body slumped toward the floor now.
‘I’m going to undo your belt. Pull your pants down. Don’t go getting any funny ideas.’
She smiled as she spoke, trying to grasp some sort of positivity, but the complete lack of response from him soon saw an end to that.
With a bit of tugging and heaving she finally managed to pull his pants toward his knees, by which point he was laid out on the floor. The gunshot wound on the back of his leg didn’t look too bad, although she had to dig around for the bullet. Mason squirmed and shouted out as she did that – was that a good sign? She put on a basic dressing before going to the wound on his side which was undoubtedly worse and still oozing blood. The angle of the hit had torn a deep line through the flesh on his side and she did her best to clean it all and stitch it up.
‘Mason, wake up,’ she said, pulling his body up again, back against the wall. ‘You need some fluids.’
She took the bottle of water and tipped it toward his lips, but the liquid simply sloshed down his front.
‘Mason, seriously, come on.’
She paused and stared at him, trying to find inspiration for something.
‘We did it,’ she said. ‘We got Karaman.’
But H is dead and who the hell was the fourth guy you didn’t tell me about?
She checked her phone. No calls or texts or anything but she hadn’t expected any. She spent a couple of minutes scanning the news. Every site was awash with stories. Some called it a daring escape. Others an abduction. Some had rightly connected the crash not far from the prison and even referred to the two dead bodies found in the van, although she could find nothing yet that identified the dead men, or Mason.
Or her.
Definitely a relief, but she wouldn’t allow herself to properly relax until this was over and she had the money in the bank and Karaman was out of her sight forever.
‘Tell me what we do next,’ she said to Mason. ‘How do we get the money? Who do I need to call? Where do I need to take Karaman?’
Mason didn’t give any response at all. Not until Angel reached into his jeans pocket for his phone. As she drew it out, he put his hand onto hers and she wasn’t sure if it was to help her or stop her, but the next moment his fingers slipped away and back to the floor as she turned the phone over and looked at the screen.
Locked. And it needed a PIN, rather than just his thumbprint or face ID which would have been much simpler for her.
‘What’s the code?’ she said.
Nothing.
So she slapped him again, harder this time and she had to really hold herself back from just hitting him again and again until he properly woke up and gave her a full explanation for how everything had gone so damn wrong.
‘Mason! Wake the fuck up! What’s your code? Who do I need to call?’
He slowly shook his head. His eyelids flickered. He opened his mouth to speak…
‘What?’ she said, moving closer. ‘Say it again.’
‘I’m… s… sss…’
‘You seem to be confused!’ came a shout from the next room. Karaman. She ground her teeth together.
‘I’ll be back,’ she said to Mason before leaving him and she stood in the doorway to the other bedroom glaring down at her prisoner. ‘Excuse me?’
‘You seem to be confused. You think he’s still on your side.’
She said nothing.
‘I know you’re there,’ he said.
‘Where else would I be?’ she replied.
‘So what was the deal?’ Karaman said. ‘How did he rope you in? He pretended you would get paid to take me, hand me over to my enemies?’
Again she didn’t respond.
‘How much?’ he asked.
She didn’t say a word, she was too busy trying to contain the anger and frustration that threatened to explode out of her. At Karaman and at Mason.
‘He screwed you,’ Karaman said. ‘And you want to know how I know that?’
‘How?’
‘Because I was in the van. You weren’t. I heard the conversation.’
She had to push her heels down into the ground to stop her legs shaking from surging adrenaline, even though doing so only aggravated her gunshot wound.
‘What conversation?’
Karaman laughed. ‘The guy you brought here. He’s in charge?’
‘Maybe I am.’
‘No. You’re not. So it’s him. The thing is, your other buddy, the dead guy, wasn’t too happy. He couldn’t understand why they left you behind. Not part of your rules or something. And he couldn’t understand who the guy driving the van was.’
She pushed the heels of her hands against her temples, trying to think.
‘Do you know?’ Karaman asked. ‘The guy driving the van? Did you know him?’
‘Of course I did.’
‘Then why’d you kill him?’
She didn’t answer that. How did Karaman even know?
‘And your friend next door? Ask me how he got that gunshot on his side. And why the other guy in the back of the van with me didn’t make it.’
‘Tell me.’
‘They were arguing. Then fighting. The driver tried to get them to see sense but couldn’t. It started off with angry words, then they tussled. The van was swerving all over the place. It was only a matter of time. Then two gunshots. Then the crash. Next thing I know you arrive. Now here we are.’
Angel had no words and she hated that, because it meant Karaman knew she was listening, and he knew she was in turmoil.
‘The way I see it… Maybe the guy you left behind was the one still on your side,’ he said. ‘Because the man in that room next door? He screwed you. You were supposed to die. Either out there, or maybe in here. But whatever deal you had with him… It was never real.’
She turned around to walk away but his voice stopped her.
‘You don’t like what I’m telling you, but you know it’s true. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have stood and listened to me. You can sit and wait now, but for what? He’ll recover and kill you. Or whoever he’s working for will arrive and kill you. So maybe you need a different plan from here.’
She carried on out but his words were eating away at her.